That Glorious End
by Prophetic Fire
Summary: In a rare break from training stormtroopers for the Empire, Commander Cody contemplates his actions, his purpose, and what's left of his life.


Sunset.

After all these years, after all he'd seen, all the hell and loss, all the taxing days and sleepless nights, there was little that Cody considered beautiful anymore. The Empire had wiped out his ability to care about those things long ago. He'd never been meant to enjoy aesthetics anyway. His existence was practical, born of necessity. If they'd wanted him to waste his time on artistry they would have taught him how. He was a soldier. Still was a soldier. Beauty didn't matter.

But the vivid, majestic, precious rarity of a Kamino sunset still took his breath away.

He wouldn't have even allowed himself this indulgence, except he'd already scheduled recreation time for his trainees. He hated them. Hated every single entitled brat who enlisted as a stormtrooper to "serve the Empire". They couldn't fight, couldn't shoot, couldn't stay disciplined, and what did they think they were serving, anyway? There was no honor in serving the Empire. They could have chosen anything else, and they chose this, and they bitched about it every single day. So they got recreation time. To shut them up.

Cody had earned the right to bitch. He'd never gotten to choose.

And, as he sat on the deck of a landing platform in Timira City and gazed across the calm ocean, he supposed he had earned this too.

He wasn't alone. As much as he hated this place and all the people in it, he still couldn't quite handle solitude. He'd spent his entire life around brothers. Solitude was a foreign concept. But Wooley was as familiar as breathing.

They sat in companionable silence. Wooley had his own batch of incompetents to escape, no doubt. They shared a room, but between training schedules and patrol assignments and security operations oversight, they rarely saw each other long enough to exchange more than a haggard look and a few grunts as they stumbled into or out of their bunks. And while Wooley had always kept a respectful distance from him, the gap had only seemed to grow after they lost Crys two years ago. To the flu, of all things. Their bodies weren't what they used to be, that's for sure. Still, Wooley was a brother. His last brother. And about the only peace Cody could ever find these days was in sharing space with him.

Cody cast a glance at Wooley. The waning light caught in the creases and lines of Wooley's face, exaggerating them sharply. He'd managed to keep his thick head of curls, though they'd long since gone silver. Cody ran a hand over his own close-cropped hair and dragged it down his face. He imagined he'd look about how Wooley did, if he could be bothered to find a mirror to check. Vanity was for those who gave a damn what others thought of them. He still fit into his clone trooper armor, at any rate, even if he no longer wore it, and that was the standard he would hold himself to. The new stuff was cheap and flimsy and came in sizes–– _sizes––_ to fit all the _mir'osik_ Daddy's money Mommy's connections _chakaaryc auretiise_ who wanted to "serve the Empire".

You'd think with all that money they could afford better armor.

Not that he had to worry about it saving his life. He'd never see combat again. He was outdated machinery now, in the eyes of those who called the shots. A liability in the field. And for all that he kept himself in peak condition, he could feel it too. He couldn't run as far or as fast as he used to. Couldn't stop his knee from sometimes giving out. Couldn't focus as easily on the text of his datapad without enlarging the letters a little. The days were passing by more and more quickly, and he could feel his built-in obsolescence catching up to him. Would it be illness that took him out, like Crys? Or would his heart burst during a training exercise? Or would he last just long enough for his mind to slip away, leaving him blissfully unaware of how useless he was, until the Kaminoans came along to put a blaster bolt through his skull? Only fitting, really, that the planet on which he'd been "born" would be the place his life would end. This waterlogged hellhole, that he'd once had foolish enough pride to call "home", that mocked his hatred of it by every once in a while sending a brilliant splash of orange and pink and purple across the sky and making his breath catch in his throat.

"I don't want to die like this, Wooley."

The words were spoken quietly, but they cut into the peaceful silence with a painful clarity. He felt Wooley shift beside him, could feel the concerned weight of his gaze, though he kept his own eyes fixed on the shimmering horizon.

"Sir?" came Wooley's careful response.

Cody took a breath. "This sunset. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Wooley's gaze bore into him. "Yes, sir?"

Cody continued to stare into the distance. "I almost didn't come out to see it."

When Wooley didn't respond, Cody kept talking. "I didn't… I didn't think I deserved to." He dropped his gaze to his hands, brushing calloused fingers across rough knuckles. "I train substandard soldiers, all day, every day. I work harder than they ever will. I don't stop, I don't rest, I don't treat this like a _joke_ , because I still have a goddamn sense of _duty,_ and the only pleasure I ever get is a kriffing _sunset_ , and I'm too damn brainwashed to even take the time to enjoy it."

Cody sighed and scrubbed his hands across his face. "I was made to serve the Republic. To fight for its preservation, and, if necessary, to lay down my life for its protection. I failed the first directive. I'll never get to fulfill the second. I'm gonna _sit here_ training my _replacements_ until I can't kriffing _see_ the sunset anymore, and then they'll take me out back and shoot me like the good little dog I am."

Cody fought against the lump that suddenly swelled in his throat. "I had envisioned such a glorious end for myself, and this is…this is…not…"

With a growl of frustration, Cody wiped at his eyes, hot and stinging.

"Sir," came Wooley's careful voice again.

"Why do you still do that, Wooley?" Cody snapped, the sound of the deferential title suddenly setting his teeth on edge. "I'm not your commanding officer anymore."

In the tension that followed, Cody wished he could take his words back. It wasn't Wooley's fault. None of this was Wooley's fault. He raised his gaze to meet Wooley's, and he saw pain. But a tenderness hung around the edges of his expression.

"You'll always be my commanding officer, sir."

Cody sensed a heaviness in those words, but before he could process it Wooley was speaking again.

"You've been needing to say all that for a while now, haven't you?"

Cody let out a humorless chuckle and twisted his lips into a passable semblance of a rueful smile. "Yeah. I guess I have."

Wooley, to his credit, gave a real chuckle. "If it makes you feel any better, I stopped assessing my trainees by trooper standards when they couldn't even pass the basic drills we knew when we were four."

Cody snorted, and amusement crinkled the corners of Wooley's eyes. "We do what I like to call CB drills now. They think it stands for 'cohesive battalion'."

Cody lifted his eyebrows. "What does it…actually stand for?"

A wicked smile spread on Wooley's face.

"Clanker bait."

A giggle burst out of Cody before he could stop it. It grew, and grew, until Cody was clutching at his side, tears streaming down his face as he laughed until he couldn't breathe. With little gasps, he wiped at his eyes, tiny snorts still sneaking their way out. Beside him, Wooley also struggled to compose himself.

"I haven't…" Cody wheezed, "laughed like that…in I don't know how long."

"Me neither," Wooley said breathlessly. "Was afraid I might burst a blood vessel."

"Blood vessel? I was just worried about peeing myself."

That sent the two of them into another round of hysterical giggling.

When the last of the chortles subsided, Cody heaved a contented sigh. "Oh, Wooley." He looked over at Wooley, shaking his head and smiling fondly. "Wooley, Wooley, Wooley. Whatever would I do without you?" He watched Wooley's eyes light up. For a moment, Wooley looked like the eager young shiny he had once been. Cody's chest tightened with nostalgia. "I feel…so alone, sometimes, Wooley. I'm glad you're still here."

"I _am_ here, sir," Wooley reassured him. Then, softer, "I've always been here."

Wooley's expression lost a bit of its brightness, the worldweary depth of his age showing through again. Cody felt a pang in his heart. All these years, he'd been Wooley's commander. He'd tried to be a good commander, set a good example, kept his men as safe as he could, led with understanding and caution. And for all that, it had gotten Wooley right here with him, in the same boat, living out the last of their usefulness as forgotten relics of the old Republic.

"I'm giving you a field commission," Cody said suddenly. "I'm promoting you. To Commander."

Wooley blinked, taken aback. "Sir?"

"We're equals now, Wooley. Please, don't call me 'sir' anymore. Please…call me Cody."

Wooley's brows knitted together in what looked like a mix of confusion and amusement. "I don't…think…that's how it works, s––" Cody could hear the hiss of an 's' barely escape his lips, before he stopped himself. "Commander."

Cody opened his mouth to correct him, but Wooley held up his hand. "I know, I know. It's just…old habits die hard."

They lapsed into silence once again, and Cody turned his face back to the dying sun. Literally. Kamino's aging star swelled a vivid red as it tracked below the horizon. The thick atmosphere bent and twisted its light, amplifying its colors in a way a star in its prime could never shine. As he watched the bursts of color through the clouds that were beginning to form, Cody wondered. If things had been different, could they have done something? If anyone realized this would have been their fate, could they have stopped it? They'd been robbed––so cruelly, violently robbed––of their autonomy. The more years that went by, the more Cody had been able to see that. It had felt like awakening from a dream. Feeling tugs of familiarity, seeing flashes of truth, catching wisps of self. Struggling to remember. Sliding away each time his mind butted up against some intangible barrier, but somehow knowing that on the other side of it lay both the questions and the answers. A bitter tang on the back of his tongue was the only lingering reminder that something–– _something––_ had been guiding him, manipulating him, _controlling_ him.

Out of the dream, and into the nightmare.

"Would you fight back, if you could?"

Cody could hardly believe those words had come out of his mouth. And from Wooley's sudden twitch and quick scan of the platform they sat on, neither could he.

"Sir? I mean–– Commander? I mean––"

"It's all right. I was just speculating."

"That's dangerous talk," Wooley said, lowering his voice.

Cody turned to him. Looked him in the eye. He hadn't even considered until this moment that Wooley might still be influenced by… _whatever_ it was…that had kept him in the dark for so long. But suddenly he had to know.

"Wooley, what they did to us was _aruetyc."_ Cody spat the word out. "Of the highest level. If you had the chance to make it right, what we failed at all those years ago, would you do it? If you got a second chance, Wooley, would you take it?"

Wooley's eyes darted over the landing platform again. His jaw worked back and forth. Cody continued to watch him intently, waiting for his answer, but a sick feeling began to churn in his stomach. He'd made a mistake. He'd misinterpreted Wooley's candidness as agreement. Well, at this point it hardly mattered. If Wooley turned him in as a traitor to the Empire, at least he could finally go down with that glorious end he'd hoped for.

 _"Cody."_

The sound of his name pulled him from his thoughts. When he refocused, Wooley was staring back at him with a steel gaze.

 _"Cody,"_ Wooley said again, his voice low and sharp, his eyes fierce. Cody tensed. Wooley held out his arm.

"I would _always_ take that chance."

It felt like a lifetime before Cody's mind processed the words. But as soon as it had, relief washed over him in a tingling wave, sweeping through his chest, his arms, his legs. He reached out and clasped Wooley's arm tightly. _"Vode ratiin."_

"Always," Wooley echoed. "Brothers to the end."

Wooley bent toward him, and Cody closed the gap to rest their foreheads together.

"Let's hope someday we get that chance."

––––––––

If any of the Alliance to Restore the Republic noticed, when they attacked Timira City, that two identical stormtroopers shed their armor and slipped aboard one of their ships, no one said anything.


End file.
